South Korea’s penetration rate of smart TVs came in at 9.6 percent in 2014, a poll showed Friday, helping declining TV ratings bounce back to an uptrend.

According to the poll conducted by the state-run Korea Information Society Development Institute, the portion of households with smart TVs has soared nearly fourfold from 2.6 percent in 2011, when it first started to compile such data.

The poll was conducted on 12,000 respondents from 5,000 households nationwide.

With smart TVs providing video-on-demand services that allow users to enjoy diverse content without time constraints like traditional TVs, the trend also boosted the average time spent watching TVs, the KISDI added.

Local households spent 186 minutes and 30 seconds watching TV per day in 2014, up from the 182 minutes and 53 seconds tallied in 2012.

The figure stood at 188 minutes and 22 seconds in 2011.

In 2014, 91.8 percent of the VOD content sold was played on TVs, up from 69 percent posted in 2013. Desktop computers held a comparable figure of 1.2 percent this year, plunging from 21.4 percent held in 2011. (Yonhap)